In the last 3 decades, Congress has enacted a number of civil rights statutes that prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, gender, disability, and age in educational programs and activities receiving federal financial assistance. These laws represent a national commitment to end discrimination in education and mandate bringing the formerly excluded into the mainstream of American education. As efforts are continually geared toward effective enforcement of the civil rights laws, it is important to look at the impact of the laws on students facing discrimination who attend elementary and secondary schools, and colleges and universities. This fact sheet provides indicators of progress in removing racial, gender, disability, and age barriers to equal educational opportunity at the national, state, and local levels. Examples of progress include: the dropout rate of African-American students (age 16 to 24) declined from 20.5 percent in 1976 to 13.0 percent in 1996; the average score of females on the mathematics section of the Scholastic Assessment Test increased 23 points between 1982 and 1998; in the 1994-95 school year, the percentage of disabled students served in regular classrooms increased 20 percent from 1984; and the number of higher education students age 35 or older, rose from 783,000 in 1972 to 2,778,000 in 1996. (JMD)

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